We would like to ask you to fill in a survey questionnaire, which is aimed at any family and friends carer who has used this discussion forum, whether you post on it now, used to post on it but stopped, or just browse it without posting.

The survey is being carried out by Roseanne McGlade, a student from Birmingham University who is studying for her Masters degree, and who is a strong supporter of family and friends care being used more often as an option for children who can't be with their parents. She has compiled the survey in consultation with us at Family Rights Group.

All the information that you provide is in strictest confidence, and when Roseanne writes her report it will not contain any information that could be used to identify you or the children. However, your responses will help us at FRG know what your thoughts are about the forum, and help us to think about ways that it could be improved.

Thank you David for posting the link to the survey. I just wanted to introduce myself – my name is Roseanne McGlade and I am the person carrying out the survey as part of an evaluation of the discussion board.

I feel very strongly that children should be brought up within the family where possible and that family and friends should have support to care for children who cannot live with their parents. For my dissertation I am looking at the support available to family and friend carers, also known as kinship carers or connected person carers and I am evaluating this discussion board for family and friends carers. The Charity hopes that this information will help them to have a better understanding of who uses the discussion board, how it has affected them and ways to possibly improve the service.

I would like to say thank you to the people who have already completed the survey, your responses have been very useful.

It would be really helpful if other people could also complete the survey this week as I would really like to hear the different experiences people have had when using the forum.

The survey should only take around 10 minutes to complete and there’s also a link at the top of the page which allows you to save what you have done and complete it later.

I am also carrying out interviews with family and friends carers. During the survey, there is an opportunity to say whether you would be willing to take part in the interview. The interview should take 20-30 minutes.

If you would like to take part in the interview but not the survey or if you have any questions about the survey or the evaluation, please contact me using the discussion board’s private messaging service or send an email to the email address given on the first page of the survey.

Thank you to everyone who has already completed the survey, your responses have been really helpful.

The deadline for responses is this Sunday (10th of August) and so if you haven’t already completed the survey, it would be really useful if you could do so by the end of Sunday. Please click on the link above to complete the survey. It should only take 10 minutes and each response helps to build a picture of who is using the forum and how and what they think of it so every response is valuable.

I hope you’re having a good summer – thank you for all of your support so far,